Many users of data processing systems are often required to fill or send out forms or letters during or after one or more data processing transactions. For example, a bank service division handling credit card operations will handle tasks such as credit card security, including spotting fraudulently used or stolen credit cards, customer reports of lost or stolen credit cards, customer inquiries regarding such credit cards, and replacement card requests.
Such an operation relies heavily on forms and letters and in some cases, up to several dozen forms may have to be filled out. Such forms may include initial customer set up check lists, customer, merchant and law enforcement follow-up forms, and even Western Union mailgrams to be sent to a customer.
In the prior art, such forms are typically filled out manually and placed in a file folder. Little information is available on-line on the data processing system. All follow-up action on a particular case requires access to this file. Locating the file is often a problem leading to time lost and wasted in searching for the file. Additionally, a manual file system may also result in incomplete files due to forms not being placed in the file, or forms improperly or incompletely filled out.
In another prior art system, although a form can be partially completed using data displayed on a data terminal screen, the form cannot be saved and must be immediately printed or viewed. The form cannot be saved for later retrieval either by another operator or service representative, or by the same service representative wishing to complete or add more information to the partially completed form.
Other inefficiencies in the prior art method result from a lack of simultaneous operator terminal access to multiple data processing applications. For example, in processing a customer's call, a service representative may be required to log into many different application programs and routinely access an even greater number of screens of information. Such a system requires the service representative to manually or automatically record on a form or other piece of paper, one or more pieces of information from each terminal screen, after which all information must be manually entered onto one form.
Further, such a system then requires the service representative to log off one application program before logging on to another. This necessitates re-entry of the customer's account number and supporting identification codes with each access to a different applications program or host. Such a method is extremely time consuming, further ties up the host computer resources, and often results in numerous data entry errors. This further results in delays in processing the customer cases and an accompanying tendency to act on incomplete or improperly compiled information.